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- [00:01]
A
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B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and the Becker Business Podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant leader. We'll call her the CEO in the spotlight. We're with today Carolyn Raphael. And Carolyn Runs, CEO of Winger Marketing, is a brilliant thought leader, incredibly gifted. We're going to talk to her about the company itself, her vision, what she sees working today, and a lot more. Carolyn, can you take a moment before we get started to have you introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about Winger Marketing?
- [01:08]
C
Well, first of all, thank you for that really generous and beautiful introduction, obviously. I'm Carolyn Rafael, as you said. And Winger Marketing is a strategic marketing and public relations firm. We're really focused on developing category leaders, thought leaders in the B2B market. And we're actually celebrating our 40th anniversary this year.
- [01:35]
B
I mean, that's literally remarkable. And congratulations. And talk about how the firm was founded, how you came to lead it and sort of your journey, moving from an employee of the firm to an owner of the firm. And then we'll talk more about the momentum. Good signs, positive signs, you know, what made you think this would all work is you've done remarkably well and you're just a pleasure of a person. But talk to us about the history of it.
- [02:02]
C
Yeah, certainly. So I'm obviously not a Winger. I'm a Raphael. And so the firm was founded by Sherry Winger. She actually ran the hotel marketing division for Playboy Enterprises. And so when Playboy started selling off their properties, you know, things change. And they were generous enough to say to Sherry, hey, keep the Grand Geneva, which at the time I believe was the Americana in Lake Geneva. And that was her first account. And she started, she kept her desk at the Playboy office. And I came to the firm in 1997 as an employee. I like to think of myself as an accidental entrepreneur. I really never envisioned running an agency. However, when the moment came and when the opportunity was presented, I had been at the firm for about 10 years. I started doing data entry, creating media lists, very tactical, yet essentially pieces of work in the public relations business. I moved my way up into the vice president's position, and I had a short maternity leave, came back. Mr. And Mrs. Winger said, hey, listen, while you were out, we decided to retire. So you can either buy the business or we can shut it down. And so at that moment, as someone, I was 33 years old, having my first child, and it was quite a moment to think, okay, I can create a life and a universe where I get to employ people, I get to do good work for organizations that are also doing good work in the world. And that, to me, was much more appealing than going out and interviewing for a new job, being, you know, obviously a little bit tired, and really coming into several new phases in my life. Right. Going from being an employee and a wife to all of the sudden being a business owner and a mother. And so that really, that moment was pivotal in my life and in the decision to take over Winger. And that was in 2006. So I've actually run Wingers since 2006. So I'm personally having my 20th anniversary as the owner. And I can tell you there were moments when I didn't know if we would make it right. 2008 was a really difficult year. But I think the reason we've been able to continue on and create a legacy of more than 40 years is because we listen to the market, because we. We pivot when we need to. And I believe that that is the secret. You constantly have to be reinventing.
- [05:19]
B
Fantastic. And talk a little bit about. So you've been running this for 15 to 20 years? Almost 20 years plus, I guess, now.
- [05:26]
C
Yeah.
- [05:27]
B
Tell us a little bit, Carolyn, about some of the lessons you've learned that might be helpful to others running a business. Then I want to talk specifically because you specialize, you've got this great, great business in helping people, business to business, with their marketing and brands. I want to talk about maybe some examples of your work and what's going really well for clients and customers, you know, and where you should shy. Where clients should shy away from spending their marketing money. Like, where's good spend? Where's not good spend? What makes sense? What should they be doing? But take a second on a few of the lessons you've Learned in the 20 years of running a business.
- [06:03]
C
I think the biggest lesson I've learned is how important it is to take care of yourself as a leader, as a business owner. It's very easy to make sure that your employees are happy and allow them the time they need. And that was a Big deal to me. I really wanted to make sure that as a mother, I was creating an organization that allowed people to be human if they needed to take their kid to the doctor, great. Just get your work done so you know those lessons. And even now, having done this for 20 years, I still have to remind myself to take a break, because if you don't, then there are definitely health consequences. So that is my number one piece of advice, is to take care of yourself. And also the reason that is so important so that you can develop leaders around you. One of the other reasons that Winger Marketing has been so successful is because when people come to work for us, they stay. I've had a wonderful opportunity to engage with individuals, help them develop. We obviously encourage that. We do lots of continuing education. And where I'm on the board for the American Marketing association in Chicago, which is the largest chapter in the country. And so we get to participate in a lot of programs as a chapter and as an organization. So I think making sure that you're staying connected, developing leaders so that as an owner, you can step back and allow other people to lead. And that gives you the space, or gives me the space to start to create the next level of the business. Right. How do we scale? How do we take what we've created and bring that to more organizations? And so that's where we are right now. But.
- [08:08]
B
But I love that perspective of two key things. First, you have to take care of yourself. Physical and mental health. I'll simplify for my own how I look at it, but you mentioned something I think is right on if you want to lead. There's an old book that says you have to manage yourself first and taking care of yourself physically and mentally. So important to be a leader. The second you said is something this concept of it's all about developing other leaders and developing a deep team and retaining people. And I think that's right on as well, that you can't do great things as an organization unless you have the right people and keep the right people. And as a leader, take care of yourself so you could actually perform how you need to perform. I just love that.
- [08:50]
C
Thanks, Scott. I mean, that is really what guides me every day, is knowing that the work that we're doing is impactful and that we continue to nurture not just our clients, but ourselves as individuals. And you can't stop growing. I mean, our entire industry is being upended with AI. Right. And so we as an organization have had to find ways to work with it. And, you know, I. I Believe in the beginning of this evolution of our workplace with AI, you know, there were some agencies that were saying, well, you know what, we write everything ourselves, we don't use AI. And I thought to myself, you know, I don't think that's a great idea. It's a little bit like saying, you're not going to use the Internet. So we have had to continue to develop ways to work with our clients, to meet their expectations, to expedite and really try new ways to saturate and to share the information. Scott, I want to tell you a quick story because it is something I'm really proud of and I hope it's okay if I lean into this, but it is about your healthcare group. With Becker's Hospital, we had a campaign that we did for a client, HSG Advisors, in 2019 during COVID And we used our max out methodology, right. We used multiple channels to amplify the work. We wanted to create outreach, reach and really bring traffic into their website and to these individuals by sharing their thought, leadership. And so we created a campaign with you, with your organization that was a content distribution campaign. They wrote an amazing article, very timely. Right on Covid. I mean, they were right on it. We made sure that we responded and we listened to what the market really needed at that time and helped them develop a piece of content that would resonate across so many levels during COVID Not only did we push it out through your organization and through the Becker's platform, but we complemented that with our own email campaign, our own social media campaign, and also a one to one distribution of the document. And all of this had links back to the original content on your platform. And so I got a call from our representative and she said, hey, your campaign is doing really well. In fact, it's doing so well that we had to call a meeting and have them bring in all of the reports so so we could make sure the numbers were actually real. And they were. And I really attribute the success of that campaign to understanding what was going to resonate and then using every channel that we had to bring it out to market and to direct it back
- [12:22]
B
to the source and talk about the importance of that. Cause we used to say to people that writing an article or giving a speech was nice, but making sure that your client base and the people you talk to get a copy of that article and you're in touch with them, an article is far more important. And giving the speech, it's not so much giving the speech, it's getting 10 names in the audience that you'll follow up with or letting your own client base know, hey, I'm an expert in this. I gave a speech in this, it was a pleasure. Just want to let you know, not selling, but letting them know.
- [12:55]
C
Exactly.
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B
And position yourself correctly. How important is it that follow up to campaigns that you do that well and make sure, you know, you get more mileage out of whatever campaign you're doing?
- [13:06]
C
What you've just said is so critical. It is, it is, as you said, I believe even more important than just giving the speech or writing the article is what do you do with it once it's out? Right. And sometimes when we're talking with a prospective client, they might push back and say, well, you know, I mean, who, who, who reads the news? You know, it's, it's where they're all getting their, their news by watching TikTok. And you know, I don't want to be on TikTok. And you know, we, that's when I have to sit back and say, listen, public relations, content marketing, the way that people think of you, this is something that is so critical and so important and it takes years to build this kind of credibility in your industry, position yourself as a leader, and it doesn't take much to knock you right out of that if something happens or if you say something or if someone in your organization says something that is not beneficial or in line with the messaging. And so that is one of the reasons why we created this multi channel amplification process for our clients because we understood that making sure that these third party articles or speeches or podcasts or whatever you may, you know, do to talk about what you care about, your, your leadership style, your industry, what have you, if you don't share those, I mean, they'll just be lost. So it is about effort, right? It's, it's, I say, you know, it's like 10 talent, 90% effort. And, and that's where the difference is in the people that you notice and the people that you start to get to know in the industry is they're consistent and they're on 100%.
- [15:09]
B
And, and to anybody who's been doing this for a long time, you know that the first couple times you shoot something out, people might sort of laugh at it, think, what are you doing? What's going on? By the fifth or seventh time they start to look at you and say, oh, that's a serious professional, that's a serious company, that they're trying to accomplish something. And I respect that. And then at some point, they really recognize the brand, and the brand doesn't sell itself, but it's your support for a lot of the other work that's done by the company. But I couldn't agree with you more. If you're doing a campaign, you want to have multiple uses of that campaign, and who asks you to make sure it gets in front of your. Your core customers. And so they see it and respond to it. And I love that. Let me ask you another question, Carolyn. You've done this incredible job. Talk to us a little bit about how do best leadership teams work with and think about marketing and public relationship relations. How do they think about that, you know, as a. As how it can be a growth engine, not just a cost center?
- [16:13]
C
Thank you for asking that question, because that is obviously the. The piece that I believe gets in the way of business growth is when an organization sees marketing as just a cost. You know, it's not always easy to connect the dots, right? They might say, oh, I saw you on Good Morning America. Well, guess what? You were never on Good Morning America. But they saw you somewhere, and in their mind, they've made a connection that you're credible. I think this was one of the pivotal moments in our organization, was when we moved from being very tactical, more of a press release and pitching shop, to a strategy organization where we get to sit at the table with the CEO and really say to them, listen, what are the business goals? Because we need to align what you're doing with marketing with those goals. If we can't do that, then it's not going to be a successful campaign. So getting really clear on the business goals is probably the biggest challenge we see with organizations that we come to work with and the ones who, you know, our clients stay with us for many, many, many years. We had one client for actually 30 years. And it's. They stay because they understand that once you start this, it is transformational. You know, it's not just about now having visibility. It's having this trust. Building trust is really hard, especially if you're doing it through zoom. So having the opportunity to put out content that can be published on very credible publications or podcasts or what have you and then distributed. I mean, when you start to understand that that is a core part of the strategy of an organization and owning your messaging, because communication and trust are some of the most important things for building loyalty with your brand.
- [18:23]
B
No, and I love that. I think that's right on. And it's being consistent in the. In the right message and being in front of the right people and making sure that your ideal customer base sees it and, and that you're using it and reusing it to be in front of those people. What channels do you see working particularly well today for companies trying to build brand strength, get results? What channels are working and maybe where do you, where you didn't, where do you not allocate client funds or efforts today or strategy because it's not working as well.
- [18:56]
C
It's another great question because this goes back to the evolution of this market, how we communicate, how media exists, trust in media. Right now we're actually spending quite a bit of time with our clients authoring articles for LinkedIn because first and foremost it helps build your profile as an individual, as a professional on LinkedIn. LinkedIn has one of the best search engine optimization backends of any website or organization that's out there. So when you write an article and you properly optimize it on the back end, because they do have tools to do that as an author and a contributor to LinkedIn, all of a sudden your articles are found very easily when you use the right keywords. And so we're using that and then of course we're re amplifying it through our email channels. Believe it or not, email is still one of the most important ways to create transactions with business. And I know that like so much happens that where we get so much junk we, you know, throw it away. It's still a very critical part of the entire campaign. But you know, starting with the message is, is essential. And then once we have the message again, I like LinkedIn right now, earned media is still really important. It's very diffic to get because so many organizations have shifted how they publish content. However, there's also publications that are very hungry for content. And so we've been able to create relationships with our clients where they're contributing to the content of a publication regularly, they have a regular byline, or they are regularly interviewed by reporters because these reporters know that will be available, the clients will give good responses, will meet their deadline. You know, there's a lot that you have to consider but you know, for the B2B market, those are essential. Now if you were to ask me more about consumer brands and consumer marketing, I mean, yes, TikTok is critical. My son, he's 17, he believes everything he sees on TikTok. So, so, you know, of course we have to go in and when he asks us about things or shares these videos like hey, you gotta fact check it, you gotta make sure, what you're reading is true. And so I think that's why creating trust, creating a voice of credibility is so important right now.
- [21:47]
B
How do your best clients turn marketing into results? How do they use it to sort of build brand and then build growth and build revenues and achieve their goals? How do you see the best ones really tying those things together?
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C
Well, well, you got to have a budget and so, you know, we can be very scrappy. The ones who do it very well are consistent and they do have someone on their team who is a dedicated PR or marketing liaison that we work with. And so understanding that, you know, even though we might be working directly with the CEO on helping them with their presentation skills or writing a speech and coaching them through it, or even just developing content with them to be published, you know, we still need to have that person who is the conduit and the person who keeps things moving, right? Momentum. You have to create the momentum and then you have to continue to move with it and change with it. Again, being responsive to what audiences really want to talk about. It might not be what you want to talk about, but if you understand your audience and you give them something that is valuable, you know, it's amazing how that content gets shared. And finally then, you know, there are, there's of course a marketing funnel, right? You've got your top of the funnel, middle funnel, bottom of the funnel, and people still, you know, download white papers and give you their contact information and then you have to really, you know, nurture that lead. But one of the most important things that is a part of our clients strategy is not just content, it's getting to these in person meetings. B2B companies, number one way they develop new business is in person. And so making sure that your executive presence is sharp, your messaging is clear, and that you can show up and represent and you know, connect. That's where the rubber meets the road.
- [24:10]
B
Thank you. And I just absolutely love that. I think that's right because this concept of it's, it's. What I love is it's not just marketing in a vacuum, it's not just spreading in a vacuum. It's branding that ultimately to be in meetings with the right people, it's not direct response, but it's things that are a piece of getting in front of the right people so that you connect branding to actual growth of the company. And I think it's a, I think it's just a fantastic perspective to talk for a second about how you take a client's story, a customer story, and translate that into the right branding so you can really tell a story about, about the company.
- [24:47]
C
We help them get to that piece of the story or find that story that really has a goosebump factor. Right. And it's authentic and, and that's not always easy to uncover. But, you know, it's a little bit like when you asked me about starting, you know, taking over this company. At the time, the thing that was most important to me was creating flexibility, creating an online organization that people could work from anywhere, they could be anywhere, and they could do their job and build the life they want. And I don't tell that story as much as I should. And I feel like because it's so personal, people shy away from including myself from sharing that. But in business, there's a fine line between wearing the corporate coat and being an authentic individual. There are great examples of people who do this very well. I think Richard Branson does it very well. Of course there's others and their names are escaping me right now. But adding that piece of why did you get into this? Why is this important to you? And finding out the personal piece, whether it comes from a corporate story that's hundreds of years old, because we do have an organization that's actually been around since the 1400s. It's the oldest logistics company in the world and it's still a family owned organization. So that's not the story we tell all the time. But when we get to hear about how that, that birth of the organization happened and why it happened, it puts everything into such a different perspective and it provides a level of authenticity that you're not going to get just by going out and giving the message.
- [27:00]
B
No, that's actually a remarkable story and that's a story I actually want to hear more about too, on another podcast. That's remarkable. Carolyn, talk to us about, about. What are you most excited about this year? Where are you most focused and excited this year?
- [27:17]
C
Well, of course, AI excites me. We're working on developing different GPTs for clients with them. So we have their voice, but also, of course, infusing that with authenticity. I'm actually going to be talking about that with the American Marketing association in a couple of weeks. Because you can't just let AI do your work. Right? The human element, if it's not there, it's not going to be absorbed. People can tell. So keeping that authentic, I'm super excited about that. The other thing I'm really excited about is we are rolling out some workshops for clients because what we have found is that executives typically think they are really great at presenting or they don't want to present and they really need to. So either side, right, they don't want someone to come in and train them. They don't think they need it. And having done this for so many years, the people who allow us to work with them, to train them to be better on the stage, to be better on zoom, to be better in a meeting with other colleagues, those are the ones that are moving up and excelling. And so I'm delighted we're going to be rolling out some workshops on media training, on presentation training, and then also we want to give some attention to the organizations who might be limiting their budget with marketing. And typically these are smaller organizations, but they don't understand that they already have all of this content and information that they could be remarketing and using PR to share their stories. And so we're also rolling out a PR training program where we'll work with marketing teams or marketing departments to help them uncover their PR stories and map out a strategy for how to integrate priority into their marketing plan.
- [29:35]
B
Carolyn, thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity the Becker Business Podcast. I happen to be the biggest fan of what you do, so I hate to be too glowing, but really incredible. What an incredible leader and professional. Thank you so much for joining us again with Carolyn Raphael, CEO Winger Marketing, also now the owner of Winger Marketing, but a fantastic leader and a fantastic thinker who does great value for her clients. Carolyn, thank you for joining us today.
- [30:07]
C
Scott, this was wonderful. Thank you so much and good luck to you.
- [30:11]
B
Thank you.
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D
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